Jake stretched and glanced at the alarm clock. Six a.m. Instinctively, he yawned. He had never been a morning person and despite the fact that Rose was, he wasn't about to pick up on her habit. The bed next to him was just barely warm and as he became a little more alert, he focused on the sounds of the shower. Immediately, he wanted to clear away any lingering sleep and join her. He knew she'd push him away, perhaps hide whatever scar was under her arm brace. Jake could admit that he wanted to see it. She would answer so much about herself that he wanted to uncover her last secret.
Before Jake could make up his mind to be pushy, the shower water shut off. He waited for her to appear, already dressed in the short shorts that he loved to see on her.
"Oh, good, I don't have to wake you," Rose said. "We'll get coffee on the road. I want to get to Seattle early."
Jake groaned. "It's always early with you. Washington isn't that big of a state, it can't be that far away, right?"
"Two hour drive," Rose said. "Less than, if there's no traffic."
"Then why are we leaving during rush hour?" Jake asked.
"So that we can stop somewhere for breakfast," Rose said. "I found a place that I like the sound of and they open at seven. We can do an actual sit-down meal, instead of eating in the car like we normally do when we're driving like this. We made it across the country, we should celebrate that!"
Jake would do anything to keep her smiling the way that she that she was.
"Yeah, sure, if you've got a plan."
"My plan requires you to get into the shower now."
Jake groaned and flopped back against the pillow. "But where's the coffee? Usually you have coffee for me when you do this."
"That we'll get on the road," Rose said. "I'm never drinking coffee from one of our hotels again."
"It's not that bad."
"How can you say that when you've got the most ridiculous coffee orders I've ever seen?"
That sent Jake into a sitting position. "Chocolate whipped cream is not ridiculous! It melts and you get chocolate coffee!"
"That's a mocha!"
"It's different and you know it!"
"But me arguing with you got you out of bed," Rose pointed out smugly.
Somehow, without realizing it, Jake had gotten out of bed to go confront her over coffee. Coffee which didn't even exist in their motel room.
"Go shower."
Jake laughed. "Yeah, all right."
He shuffled off to the shower, moving quickly before his caffeine headache kicked in. Before coffee was the time when his dragon temper came out the most – on this trip at least. When he was at home, his dragon temper had seemed to come out a lot. In particular, near the end. It just reinforced Jake's belief that he was better on the road with Rose. Or, maybe he wanted that belief to be reinforced. He knew what he had left behind; maybe he just needed to know that he had made the right decision by doing so.
He dried off and dressed, sorting his few belongings into his bag before shouldering it. It took moments for them to check out and then they were outside. There was hazy fog hanging around and Jake hoped that the sun came out later; he wanted to be able to put the top down as they cruised along.
"Are you sure I can't drive today?"
"Absolutely positive," Rose said, popping the trunk. "I can't possibly trust you to."
"You've never given me an opportunity to," Jake argued.
Rose said something else but, Jake had to admit, he wasn't listening to her. There was another sound, thick and pulsing, something that he couldn't quite identify, but something that seemed familiar. Something that he felt like he should be able to know. He glanced at Rose and she had gone quiet too. She wasn't looking at him but rather she was looking skyward.
Jake glanced up to the grey clouds and that was when the realization of the sound hit him. It was something that he should know as well as his own heartbeat, but a summer away from it had dulled his senses.
Somewhere, above the clouds, a dragon was flying. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was hearing the beat of dragon's wings. He scanned the clouds, looking for something, anything to let him know who it was. He knew that Gramps had to be looking for him but he had no idea how he could have been found. He hadn't transformed, hadn't brought anything magic with him; there was nothing to track him by. Then, just dipping his head under the cloud cover, was the dragon.
Jake's heart stopped.
It was not Gramps.
It was the Dark Dragon.
"Shit," Rose said as the body of the dragon become more visible.
"He's here for me," Jake said, his brain lagging just enough that it took him a second to process that Rose had said the same thing at the same time.
"Why would he –"
Jake whipped around his head to stare at her. In an instant, she had tied her blonde hair back into a thick braid and, as he watched, she dropped her arm brace and the scar that Jake had been so curious about was revealed: the mark of the Huntsclan.
Rose pulled out of the trunk and, as Jake's heart sunk, he watched her pull out a black mask and a long spear.
"You're the Huntsgirl!" he blurted.
Her blue eyes turned on him and never, since Jake had gotten into her car, had Jake thought that she could look so icy and fierce. But he knew that fierce look and had been on the receiving end of the weapon in her hand before.
"You know who I am!?" she cried and her spear stirred with electricity. She didn't point it at him but her arm twitched, as though she were thinking about it.
"That doesn't matter," Jake said, realizing that everything he should now be trying to explain to her, he did not have time to say. "Listen, what matters is our enemy is up there. Rose, we're on the same side when it comes to him. Whatever else we need to sort out between us later, we will – however it ends up being that we need to sort it out."
"What are you talking about?"
Jake took a deep breath and released himself, letting him fall back into the form that he hadn't worn in months – the form that he had been trying to run away from all summer. He became the American Dragon.
He could see it on Rose's face that she recognized him instantly. She clamped her mouth shut, pulled her mask over her face, and then looked up at the Dark Dragon.
"You distract him," she said. "Get him low. There are buildings here that I can use to get on his back and take him down from there."
The Dark Dragon was getting closer. Jake didn't have enough time to disagree with her, even though he wanted to keep her out of danger. The Huntsgirl had always been lethal but Jake couldn't help but think of the fact that it was Rose under the mask.
"Okay," Jake said.
She cast him a look and Jake could see that she was worried for a moment before her expression hardened. "One thing I need to know: is it true that hitting a dragon's left ear is lethal?"
"Yes," Jake said, hoping that it didn't come back to haunt him later.
Rose nodded and then she slunk off. Jake did his best not to watch her, instead he flapped his wings, lifting himself off the ground just enough that the Dark Dragon turned to focus on him.
"What a pleasant surprise," he drawled. "I didn't expect to find the American Dragon here."
Jake bit his tongue. He knew of the Dark Dragon, had heard Gramps' tales of how they had fought. He hadn't expected the Dark Dragon to know who he was – he didn't even know how the Dark Dragon had escaped the bonds that Gramps had placed on him. He watched Rose scurry to a fire escape behind the Dark Dragon and Jake fought to find his words. He couldn't let the Dark Dragon see her and he couldn't let this fight drag out for too long – not when people were going to start waking up, leaving the motel and the surrounding apartments to go to work. The last time that Jake had been the American Dragon, he had gotten innocent civilians killed and he wasn't going to let that happen again.
"Why are you here?" Jake said. He was far from his usual bravado, but he had managed to speak and that was all that he could manage.
"I'm on the hunt," the Dark Dragon said casually. "Are you going to get in my way?"
"I'm the grandson of the Chinese Dragon," Jake said, "of course I'm going to get in your way."
"You're just a child." The Dark Dragon's eyes narrowed. "Don't be so naïve."
Jake barely had time to slither out of the way before the Dark Dragon's claws were around him. The Dark Dragon was so much bigger than he was and Jake hadn't expected that kind of speed from him. He feinted one way and then turned, getting the Dark Dragon to turn his back on the building where Rose was nearing the roof. Jake tried quickly to formulate what she was planning on doing: throwing the spear? Or, was she crazy enough to try to leap onto the Dark Dragon's back and get to his ear from there?
Knowing what he did of the Huntsgirl, it was the latter. Knowing what he did of Rose, nothing seemed to fit at all.
He dodged the Dark Dragon's claws, but not quickly enough – he felt a massive talon dig into his leg and he shook his wings, agitated as he watched his blood drip to the ground. Not knowing what else to do with himself, Jake roared. He wasn't ready to be in this position again! He was on the run; Gramps' past was not supposed to catch up to him!
"What are you doing here?" Jake shouted, needing answers from someone, since he was never going to get them from himself. "What do you want with me?"
The Dark Dragon looked startled for a moment before he sneered. "Don't fancy yourself, child. It's not you I'm after."
Jake warred with himself to not look at Rose. He knew that she was crouched into position and that it was now on him to get the Dark Dragon in place. He should rush forward to see if he could surprise the other dragon into moving backwards but his thoughts were creeping in. The Dark Dragon wasn't here for him, which meant that when Rose had said that he was here for her, she was right. Except, it wasn't Rose that the Dark Dragon wanted; it was the Huntsgirl. Jake had known the Huntsgirl first but he didn't feel – couldn't ever feel – like he knew her better.
"I heard better of you," the Dark Dragon said dismissively, "but then again, I've also heard about what happened the last time you were in New York. What a pity that was, wasn't it? All of those lives that you just let go of. Of course, I once felt bad about it too. You don't need the Chinese Dragon's misguided sense of morality."
Without him realizing it until it was too late, the Dark Dragon had been slowly taking him backwards. Now, Jake's wings were to the wall of a building. Either he had to go straight up and expose his less armoured stomach to his enemy or he had to go down and give the Dark Dragon the other hand. Indecision paralyzed him. This was how he had gotten all of those creatures killed in New York – one moment of indecision followed by a moment of too much confidence. He was going to do it again. The people of this small town on the Canadian-American border would never know what happened.
Like a bird, the Huntsgirl came flying out of nowhere. Her spear angled down, her legs and arms ready for the landing that was coming to her, she thudded onto the Dark Dragon's back. Too low on his neck to hit his ear. The Dark Dragon's neck snaked around and then he began to shake violently. Jake could see Rose slipping and, if there was one thing that Jake had been told from rushing Spud to class, he knew the only way to hold onto a dragon was to push through the pain of gripping a scale and get fingers underneath of the scales themselves.
"Get your hands under the scales! Use it as a grip!" he blurted. It didn't matter if the Dark Dragon knew they were working together or not.
Her lower body still being flopped around like a ragdoll, Rose was holding on strong to the side of his neck, her spear gripped between her teeth.
Flame flew from the Dark Dragon's mouth. Jake snarled as the heat washed over him. He tucked his back legs and then kicked the Dark Dragon in the face, taking the time the Dark Dragon was overwhelmed to volley upwards. He had two jobs: keep the Dark Dragon distracted so Rose could do her job and to make sure that even if she fell, she'd never hit the pavement.
He could feel the Dark Dragon on the tip of his tail. Jake glanced behind him. Rose was getting closer to the Dark Dragon's head and he just prayed that she could hold on. He pulled out every aerial trick in his book: from the defensive loops that Gramps had taught him when he was a kid to the stylized fighting moves that he, Trixie, and Spud had found it fun to try out when they were teenagers. The Dark Dragon didn't give into his antics, always trying to beeline to Jake, to dig in his claws or get a bite. He managed to get a bite to the end of Jake's tail but Jake had gotten his claws along the Dark Dragon's neck. The Dark Dragon let out a roar so powerful and snapped at him so suddenly that Jake was shocked that Rose had managed to maintain her grip.
Rose had made it to the Dark Dragon's head. She straddled the crown of his head and raised her spear with one hand.
Jake's heart stopped. He was about to watch a dragon die. He didn't think he'd ever be in that position before.
Then, the Dark Dragon rolled. With only one hand to hold onto him with, Rose lost her balance and plummeted. Jake watched as she lashed out with her spear, trying to catch the side of a building to slow her descent. He knew that he had to catch her.
Jake threw everything he had into his rushing descent, knowing that the Dark Dragon was older, stronger, faster. The Dark Dragon was everything that he wasn't but Jake was motivated. Whoever Rose had been before she'd climbed into her convertible and left the city with him, he hadn't seen a trace of it in the weeks that they'd spent together. And whatever, whoever, she was, he was determined to hear her explanation because when it came down to it: he loved her. He loved her more than he thought it was capable to love someone.
His claws closed in around her and Jake shot straight up.
"He has more stamina than I do," Jake said. "We have to end this quickly."
Rose wrapped her arm around his leg, pulling herself into a sitting position.
"You're going to have to throw me."
"What?"
"Get a good angle and then launch me – or I'll jump but you'll get more power behind it. I can get at his ear."
"You'll go down with him!"
"But he'll go down," she said, her voice all hard edges.
"Okay," Jake said, swallowing while his stomach turned. "I'll have to get in closer – if I threw you from this height, he'd get out of the way."
It was a tricky thing, trying to judge distance between himself and another moving target. It was something that he had always had troubles with and he absolutely could not make a mistake this time. It was Rose's life on the line – and the lives of everyone around them because he knew that he couldn't win without her.
"Now!" Rose urged.
There was no time for second-guessing. With all of his strength, Jake took aim and pushed her away from him. The momentum thrust him backward and he watched her fly. She hit the Dark Dragon's head straight on and even as he tossed about and snapped his jaws, Rose thrust her spear down onto his left ear.
It was like blowing out a candle. The light went out of the Dark Dragon's eyes immediately and he crumpled in on himself, hurtling toward the ground. He was hundreds of pounds and careened toward the very parking lot where the fight started. Jake rushed after, seeing bits and pieces of Rose: her hair or her shoes. As fast as he dove, he knew that he had no hope of catching her before she hit the ground and all that he could do was hope that she would be able to stand on her own two feet once she hit the pavement.
(-.-)
Surprisingly, Rose did not feel dead after hitting the ground. She had thought that she would, after a fall like that. The Dark Dragon was all full of points and sharp things to avoid and all she had been able to do was scrabble around and hope that she was not underneath of him when he hit the ground.
Dazed, Rose crawled out from under one massive wing. The whole fight couldn't have lasted long or have been as loud as it had sound to her ears – the people in the surrounding buildings hardly seemed to know what had happened. But then, people were good at ignoring things that didn't fit into their worlds.
Rose turned and pulled her staff from the Dark Dragon's head, watching the blood drip off it. She would have to clean it later – "a good warrior always keeps his weapons clean" was something that she always had drilled into her head. Now, though, she just retracted it and took a deep breath. She'd heard the footsteps coming up behind her and she hadn't a moment to think about what she was going to do or say. Jake was a dragon – not just any dragon but the dragon she had spent most of her youth fighting. He was the dragon whose blood she had always expected to be on her spear.
"Rose?"
She had never expected that there would be a man behind the scales no matter a man who meant so much to her.
Rose turned and there was Jake. No wings, no scales, no long teeth designed to snap a man in half. He was just the boy that she had welcomed into her car. Except, she could see the blood on his legs where the Dark Dragon had wounded him. Whatever she wanted to believe, he and the dragon were the same and she knew that she could never go back to pretending that she had never learnt that.
"Are you okay?" Jake asked.
"Bruised, probably," she said, "but I'm used to that. Are you okay? You're bleeding."
"I'm used to it," Jake said dismissively. "You … Are we going to talk about it? Why was he here for you? How are you who you are? How did I not see it?"
Jake was staring at her Huntsmark and Rose wanted to cover it. She had tried to gouge it out just weeks before she had actually taken flight from the Huntsquarters. The outline of the dragon birthmark was now thick and ropy from the blade that she had taken to it. It was ugly but she liked it better now. The Huntsmark had always been a sign of what her destiny was supposed to be and she was relieved that it was no longer clear.
"The last mission that I ran for the Huntsmaster was about the Dark Dragon. He wanted him. I never asked why. It wasn't my place to ask why. I was just supposed to find him but I woke him up. I didn't think he could get out of his bonds and so I left. I told the Huntsmaster where he was but I left New York two days later so I never found out if he actually went after him or not." Rose scuffed her foot in the ground. She should go. She didn't want to be around when someone came to investigate the dragon body. "Aren't you supposed to be some kind of protector of the city? That's what all of our intel on you said. Why would you leave?"
"What kind of intel did you have on us?" Jake asked.
Rose shook her head and took a step back from him, kneading her Huntsgirl's mask in her hands. "No. I'm not on either side. I'm not a part of this. I have morals! I have a conscience!"
"For a moment, I didn't," Jake admitted, "and that's why I left. I messed up, lost my focus, and creatures died. People who trusted me completely. I couldn't stay, knowing how I had failed all of them."
Rose could just stare at him for a moment. For all this time, there had been a dragon riding shotgun in a dragon hunter's car. It would almost be funny if the reality of it didn't hurt so bad. How could they climb back into the convertible and pretend like they didn't know? All of those easy moments of laughter and adventure had gone now.
"What now?" Jake asked.
It was the thing that she had been too afraid to voice but he had been braver than she this whole time, with his loud personality and his inability to feel shame.
"I –" Rose started, not knowing where she was going. But she was saved from having to finish.
Above their heads was a familiar sound: the flapping of dragon's wings.
Feeling sick, Rose opened her spear again and took her battle stance.
Well – the moment I'm sure several of you were waiting for! I hope it lived up to your expectations! Let me know what you think and I'll see you next chapter.
Let me know what you thought of the chapter, stay safe out there and don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now!
~TLL~